SAN DIEGO, HIMSS 2006 -- Meru Networks, the global leader in wireless VoIP infrastructure, today announced that St. Agnes Hospital, a full-service community teaching hospital in Baltimore, Maryland, is deploying Meru's WLAN System as the foundation for its enterprise-wide, pervasive wireless Voice over IP network. Using Meru's WLAN System, St. Agnes is substantially improving its patient management and care, while reducing its total network deployment and ongoing operational costs.
Like many hospitals, St. Agnes initially deployed wireless to improve in-hospital communications between physicians and nurses, and to enable better patient care. The hospital uses a wide range of data applications including medical administration, nursing documentation, a point-of-care system, pharmacy, and Meditech for clinical information, all accessible via wi-fi enabled laptops on mobile carts. In addition, St. Agnes uses approximately 500 Vocera badges throughout the facility -- one of the largest Vocera deployments in operation -- to enable nurses to communicate with patients, while the hospital's emergency room doctors and roving pharmacists use Spectralink phones to communicate within the hospital.
St. Agnes had previously deployed an 802.11b wireless network across its facility, but as their network grew, they began to experience significant performance and roaming problems. As the hospital added users and the density of the network increased, the response time became unacceptably slow and doctors and nurses began to see substantial degradation of voice quality as they roamed throughout the hospital. Simultaneous support of the hospital's mixture of 802.11b and 802.11g clients also caused network performance to suffer. In addition, the hospital was frustrated by the time-consuming site surveys that were required each time they grew the wireless network; coordinating access point locations with the building's structural limitations to achieve the right coverage was becoming increasingly challenging.
After evaluating a number of WLAN alternatives, St. Agnes determined that Meru's WLAN System was the only solution that could address all of its needs. With its patented Air Traffic Control technology, Meru's WLAN System enables St. Agnes' nurses and physicians to communicate seamlessly, as they roam throughout the hospital, with toll-quality voice. The Meru Air Traffic Control technology also enables coordinated, widespread coverage with a single channel, eliminating both co-channel interference and the need for complex RF planning and site surveys, so St. Agnes can add capacity simply by layering additional channels across the same coverage zone. This means they require fewer total access points, reducing their deployment cost substantially. Meru's solution also addresses the performance issues St. Agnes experienced as a result of their mixed 802.11b and g clients. With Meru's unique dual-speed mode, 802.11g clients perform up to five times faster than in standard WLAN systems. Finally, Meru's WLAN System incorporates the high level of security required to provide the hospital with reliable access to critical patient information and maintain HIPAA compliance.
"To ensure a high level of patient care and management, we needed a wireless network that would deliver excellent voice quality throughout our facility, regardless of where our users roam," said William Greskovich, CIO and vice president for St. Agnes Hospital. "Meru's WLAN System was the only solution that could support multiple data applications and toll-quality voice simultaneously, as well as handle our mix of 802.11b and g clients without any performance degradation. The end result is more efficient, higher quality care of our patients and significant time and costs savings for St. Agnes."
"Hospitals like St. Agnes have shown time and again the importance of choosing an architecture that is purpose-built to handle converged voice and data applications," said Kamal Anand, vice president of marketing for Meru Networks. "In an environment where users roam throughout the facility on a regular basis and require immediate, high-quality access to voice and data applications, our single channel architecture and over-the-air QoS continue to make our WLAN System the right choice for healthcare organizations around the world."
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